Adventures of an Underwater Photographer

Details: Sometimes the ocean scares me…probably a healthy thing, but this was one of those dives. I sounded up a new site off 13th Beach on a day where the swell was slightly up. It seemed reasonably innocent and well-behaved on the surface but under the water was a different story. There seemed to be an even mixture of steady south-westerly and south-easterly swells moving through the area which, as a result, created surge that wasn’t just in one direction, but two. As that interacted with the reef rising from 20m to 15m, it created a truly bizaar dive experience. A washing machine at 20m!!! It was actually a pretty cool site, so perhaps i’ll try this again when conditions are better and hope it doesn’t live up to its name (The Vortex).